


in the spaces between

by sixpences



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Domesticity, Established Relationship, Fluff, Language, M/M, Post-Episode 12, language learning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 05:13:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9420221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixpences/pseuds/sixpences
Summary: Yuuri's life in St Petersburg is spread between four languages.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Non-English words have translations in hover text, and at the end of the fic. I don't speak a word of either Russian or Japanese, so if you do and spot a glaring error then please do let me know in the comments.

**ру́сский**

The Yubileiny Sports Palace is a crash course in Russian. 

Yuuri already knew enough of the language to scrape by in conversation after a couple of college classes, taken in simultaneous hope and shame-for-hoping that he might be able to make a good impression on Victor with it some day, but lessons and homework and the odd weird Russian cartoon on YouTube don’t compare with being surrounded by native speakers every day. The Russian skaters had at first, kindly, made an effort to speak English around him, but he asked them not to, screwing up his courage and allowing himself to get lost amidst half-understood sentences.

The words that come to him first are skating terms, barked out of Yakov or one of the other coach’s mouths first thing in the morning when Yuuri is still half asleep. After five years of 7am practice with Celestino he has a kind of Pavlovian response to grumpy coach voices, and often seems to find himself on the ice warming up with an even grumpier Yurio without even thinking about it.

“Yuuri! No, _Japanese_ Yuuri!” He stops, Yurio swerving around him, and registers Yakov muttering what he thinks is the word for ‘confusing’ under his breath. “Am I taking you on too? Tired of Vitya already?”

“Um, no Coach Yakov?”

“You’re not making fun of me, are you?”

“No, Coach Yakov!” Despite having basically thrown himself at Yakov for a hug at the Rostelecom Cup, Yuuri is still more than a little bit afraid of him. He stands still as Yakov comes around to peer at him over the barrier, like a judge at a dog show.

“Hmm,” he mutters, looking Yuuri up and down. “You know forward claps?” he asks in English, and then repeats the phrase in Russian, making a little motion with his hands to indicate the jump exercise he means. Yuuri nods. “Okay, I want to see three, and then three backwards. You too Yura!”

Yuuri stays motionless for another moment, his brain still five minutes behind and longing for bed. Is Yakov going to send him another invoice for interim coaching services after this?

“Don’t just stand there, boy,” Yakov barks, turning that grumpy coach voice back up. “If you want to keep landing Vitya’s quad flip then stop wasting time. But don’t think I’ll make a habit of helping you!”

Nevertheless, when Victor appears a little while later and hands off two of the coffees he’s fetched to Mila and Georgi, Yakov is still standing in the same position at the barrier and including Yuuri in every curt instruction. Yuuri passes close enough as Victor hands over Yakov’s Raf coffee to overhear ‘same name’ and ‘might as well’.

Muscles feeling more limber and awake, Yuuri lets himself build up speed, eyeing the angles of the rink and the positions of the few other skaters already on the ice, before launching himself into the quad flip. Victor shouts his name delightedly as he makes a clean landing and Yuuri’s heart feels like it’s still soaring, spinning, so much so that he almost misses Yakov’s begrudging but admiring, “Hmph. Not bad.”

* * *

Yuuri hires Mila’s strength trainer, Yulia, to help work on his conditioning, who insists on them sharing one session a week as she has ‘more clients than just you silly ice dancers’. Mila gives him a universally understandable ‘no’ look when he starts to haltingly explain that ice dance and figure skating are actually different disciplines. Yulia also seems to take Yuuri’s mediocre Russian as some kind of personal failing and resorts to manhandling him the moment he doesn’t understand something. In that respect it’s not exactly dissimilar to training with Victor.

“She only grabs because she likes you,” Mila tells him reassuringly when Yulia steps out of the room to take a phone call. “She’s very sweet really. Give it a few months and she’ll be telling you that you’re too skinny and bringing you her wife’s homemade _syrniki_.”

“Homemade what?” Yuuri pauses between sets to shake his sweaty hair back from his face.

“ _Syrniki_.” Mila shifts form slightly to continue her squats. “Little pancakes. Like _blini_ , but made with soft cheese, which is protein, so totally good for you.” She finishes her set and puts the dumbbells down, flexing one bicep dramatically before dipping her head to kiss it. “It’s what these guns are built from,” she says in English, and Yuuri snorts with laughter.

“No laughing!” Yulia snaps behind him, making Yuuri’s back go ramrod straight and wrecking his form, which earns him a, “tch, foreigners trying to injure themselves,” and firm hands moving him back into the proper position. “You can laugh at Mila when _you_ have that much upper body strength, hmm?”

Mila winks at him and moves on to her lunges, now flexing both biceps and making ridiculous faces at him while Yulia’s distracted. He _has_ seen her lift Yurio clean over her head on more than one occasion. Perhaps he should get some of those pancakes.

“It’ll be easier once you know all the different body words,” she says once they’re packing up their things at the end of the session. “Did anyone ever teach you the ‘ _Roat, nos, ushy, e glaza_ ’ song?”

“I studied Russian in college… there wasn’t much singing.”

“I’m definitely never going to college then. Here, it goes like this,” and suddenly she’s making dramatic hand gestures along to a tune that Yuuri remembers from English classes in elementary school, where there had been a lot more singing. Mila gestures with one hand for him to join in and then they’re both pointing at parts of their anatomy and naming them like this is a normal activity that professional colleagues engage in all the time.

Once they’ve run through it a few times and he stops stumbling over the more unfamiliar words she suddenly switches to a new set of lyrics, some which he can follow ( _bitseps_ , _del’toidy_ ), some that are mysterious even with hand gestures ( _poyasnichnyy_ ), and none of which actually scan to the music.

“You’re cheating,” he says eventually, resorting to English as he raises both hands in defeat.

“No, I’m _teaching_ ,” Mila says, and then claps delightedly at her own pun. “It should help you to remember. Sing it in the shower. I learned half my English from silly songs.”

Yuuri has it stuck in his head for the rest of the week.

* * *

It’s Yurio who teaches him to swear in Russian, of course. At first Yuuri hardly even realises he’s picked it up, _der’mo_ slipping out of his mouth instead of _chikusho_ as he’s sat in the men’s locker room trying to ease off his left boot over a particularly large blister. Yurio, stuffing things in his locker, makes a disgusted noise.

“ _Baka_ ,” he spits, the only word of Japanese he seems to care to retain. “You’re saying it all wrong,” he continues, switching to very slow and precise Russian like Yuuri is five.

“Was my emphasis wrong?” Even having learned to speak English and accent his speech with stresses instead of pitch, the seemingly arbitrary rules of Russian pronunciation are hard to keep straight in his head

“Ugh… no, that was fine. But if you’re going to swear in Russian you need to be less-“ he throws up his hands, grasping for something formless but definitely angry “-less weak about it. You swear like a little baby. In Russia we swear like we mean it.” He puts a foot up on the bench Yuuri’s sat on, puffing out his chest. “Like this. _DER'MO_.”

“ _DER’MO_ ,” Yuuri copies him, trying to swear from the bottom of his lungs.

“That’s better! _DROCHER_!”

“ _DROCHER_!” Yuuri repeats him louder this time, standing up. His blister stings when he puts weight on it, but foot pain is probably just fuel for Yurio’s idea of manly Russian swearing.

“ _MUDILA_!” Yurio climbs onto the bench for the height advantage, looming as menacingly as he can.

“ _MUDILA_!” Yuuri stands up on his toes, feeling his face heat as he shouts.

“ _YOB TVOYU MAT_!” Yurio’s leaning in towards him now, in full rage mode.

“ _YOB TVOYU MAT_!”

“Everything okay in here?” Victor’s head appears around the door, swiftly followed by the rest of him. Yuuri blinks, and realises that with the way they’re standing it looks like Yurio is about to punch him- or possibly vice-versa.

“Tch,” Yurio sniffs dismissively, switching in an instant from furious tiger to disdainful housecat. “I was teaching your boyfriend how to swear like a _man_ , not a little boy.”

“When you say ‘boyfriend’ I assume you mean my _fiancé_ , Yurio?” Victor says, casually slipping his right hand out of his pocket and wiggling his fingers so his ring catches the light. _Zhenikh_ had been one of the first new Russian words Yuuri had learned since the move; Victor had insisted on it, of course, but he’d have picked it up anyway purely by the frequency with which Victor likes to drop it into any and every conversation.

“Whatever.” Yurio hops off the bench and pushes past Victor to the door, but turns before he leaves to glance back at Yuuri. “Not bad, Katsuki. We’ll work on it.”

* * *

Victor speaks Russian with him at the rink too, unless it’s easier to get Yuuri to understand something in English or Japanese, and even when he’s tapping his foot in full, calculating coach mode it’s an education in Russian zoology. Yuuri is _porosyonok_ when he flubs his third jump of the day, _ribka_ when he struggles to articulate the changes he wants to make to his step sequence for the free skate, _voronyonok_ as Victor buttons up his new black wool coat against the winter cold.

He laughs, though, when Yuuri asks him what kind of animal a _kotletka_ is.

“Oh, a very fierce and dangerous one. Your mother hunts them down every week at Super Yuki and smothers them to death with egg and dashi.”

Yuuri tries to mitigate his blush with an eye roll. “Did you have to start calling me a _katsudon_ in multiple languages?”

Victor skates up close to him, bending his head and tipping up Yuuri’s chin with one finger so their noses brush. “Only because you’re so delicious, _kotletka moya_.”

“ _Get a room_!” Yurio screeches from across the rink. Victor responds with something that’s a little too rapid for Yuuri to catch, but the tone of Victor’s voice is enough to make him laugh too.

It becomes a kind of game after that, trying to figure out if today’s nickname is an animal, a foodstuff, something else entirely, or a word that Victor has just plain made up. Yuuri learns the Russian words for giraffe, stapler, mayonnaise, runner bean, coat hanger, goat, Victor seeming more and more delighted every time he gets caught out with something ridiculous.

“My beautiful pineapple,” he coos as Yuuri puts his skate guards on at the edge of the rink, “my dearest vacuum cleaner! You skate like an elegant peanut!”

“I know what all those words mean, Victor.”

“So clever, my Yuuri.” There’s affection as well as amusement dancing in his eyes. “I’ll have to think of new ones.”

It’s weeks and many, many peculiar Russian words later when Yuuri comes down from the podium at the Four Continents, nerves still fluttering like leaves on the edge of a strong sea wind. Victor meets him at the edge of the ice and kisses first his medal, then the ring on Yuuri’s finger, and then, very softly, the corner of his mouth. “ _Zolotse moyo_ ,” he murmurs in Yuuri’s ear, and for once it needs no translation.

* * *

**English**

If Russian is the language of their everyday work, English means either business or friends, and sometimes both at once.

Chris spends the best part of a week in St Petersburg for business- something to do with an underwear brand sponsorship that Yuuri decidedly does _not_ want to know the details of- and while he ostensibly has a hotel room he might as well be staying with Yuuri and Victor for the amount of his down time he spends at their apartment.

“What kind of costume is he putting on in there?” Chris asks. He’s sprawled across their sofa in an extremely Victor-like pose, absently petting Makkachin, who’s sat on the floor beside him still upset that she’s not allowed to climb up and get her fur all over him. They have a dinner reservation in fifteen minutes at a restaurant that is rather more than fifteen minutes away.

Yuuri shrugs, leaning back against the wall. Victor has the dressing habits of someone at least three times as famous. “Last week he spent half an hour picking out a t-shirt and sweats to wear to the rink.”

Chris sighs deeply. “And Petric gets mad at _me_ for spending an extra five minutes in the bathroom now and then.”

“How’s things with you two?”

“Aside from him _persecuting_ me for taking long showers? Marvellous.” Chris tips his head back to flash Yuuri a smile that’s half his public persona and half something softer and much more genuine. “Just before I left he said to me, ‘Christophe, I’d like to get a cat,’ and of course I pointed out that we already have Pompadour, and he said, ‘no, he’s your cat, I want another cat that’s _both_ of our cat’. So he’s been at the shelter looking at cats and texting me pictures. I think this must be what it’s like when straight people decide to have a baby.”

“You should put a ring on that man’s finger, Chris,” Victor says, finally emerging from the bedroom in black trousers and a slim-fitting black shirt, an outfit that Yuuri thoroughly approves of but that should not have taken this long to put together. “Adopting a pet out of wedlock, it could cause you a scandal.”

“Please, as if I have any chance of causing even a tiny stir these days given how _certain people_ like to snog on the ice on international television.”

“That was one time!” Yuuri protests, but Victor only hums in a pleased way as he fetches their coats, holding out Yuuri’s so he can slip his arms into the sleeves.

“You know there’s people on the internet who started writing dirty fanfiction about you two after that kiss, right?” Chris says with a smirk as he pushes himself up off the sofa. “You’re a great inspiration.”

“Oh god,” Yuuri says, at the same time as Victor says, “ _Really_?” in tones of great interest.

They end up at a bar after dinner, and two drinks in Chris starts showing them a select few on his phone. Victor’s face goes even redder than Yuuri’s.

* * *

“It came as something of a surprise to the public when the two of you got together, given that neither of you were out or had really been publicly linked to anyone before. Was it a surprise to either of you, too?”

“God no,” Victor laughs, squeezing Yuuri’s hand. Dave, the British journalist sitting opposite them laughs too. He’s from a magazine called ‘Attitude’ that Yuuri has never heard of. It’s the first time in his entire career that he’s attracted any real interest outside of the sporting press, let alone internationally, which is exciting and intimidating all at once. 

“I think I realised I was gay when I was about eight or nine,” Victor continues. He, at least, is much more used to this sort of thing. “You grow up as an athlete, you notice pretty early how being around other boys in the locker rooms is affecting you. I didn’t think the long hair and flower crowns were all that subtle either.” He sighs then, glancing out the window of the hotel room where they’re being interviewed, to where the Neva River flows grey and deep. “But when you have so many female fans, there are… expectations, you know? When I was younger I worried about disappointing people by confirming that I wasn’t interested. These days, well, I don’t care.”

“And what about you, Yuuri?”

“Well this is maybe a little embarrassing,” Yuuri says, scratching the back of his head, and he doesn’t need to look at Victor to know the delighted grin he’s wearing, the same one as when Yuuri first told him this information. “I _did_ realise I was gay because of Victor, but… I was twelve at the time. One of my old rinkmates was a big fan of his, and got me to run through some of his Junior programmes with her, which involved watching them over and over, which, well…”

“His old bedroom was covered in posters of me,” Victor breaks in gleefully.

“It wasn’t _covered_ ,” Yuuri protests. “There were maybe… fifteen or so…”

“Wow, so there’s hope for fanboys everywhere,” Dave smiles, jotting something down on his tablet.

“Of course Yuuko- my rinkmate- is less of a fan these days. One time she asked us to babysit for her three kids and Victor let them eat way too much candy. They were up half the night.”

“ _You_ try saying no to those girls.”

“Anyway,” Yuuri says smoothly, trying to get back on track, “I wouldn’t say I was, ah, closeted- my family knew, my close friends knew- but I was very focused on my career and felt like my personal life was irrelevant. And then I met Victor.” It seems like the most pathetic way to sum things up ever, but the only other times he’s tried to express that feeling of _before_ and _after_ he’s ended up babbling about snowstorms in April and making no sense at all.

“So how did you decide that last year’s Cup of China would be your debut as a couple?” 

Yuuri shares a glance with Victor. They’d had a long conversation before agreeing to this interview about what would and would not stay private, and neither of them is entirely comfortable sharing with anyone that Victor’s quadruple flip-inspired and entirely spontaneous leap of passion had been their first kiss. Enough of it is already public.

“It seemed like the right time,” Victor says eventually. “Besides, I just can’t resist a man who can do a quad flip.”

After the interview they do a photoshoot; it’s the first time they’ve been photographed not as skater and coach, or as fellow competitors, but first and foremost as a couple. They’re dressed in their respective national team kits but sharing a single, huge rainbow flag draped around their shoulders.

“Just look at me,” Victor murmurs quietly to him in Japanese. “No need to think about the camera. Just look at me.” It doesn’t exactly stop Yuuri’s nervous sweats, exacerbated by the hot studio lights, but it helps. They go through different poses; side by side, facing each other with arms around each others’ waists, Victor holding him up in a simple dance lift like they’re on the ice, with the flag fluttering down behind them.

A month later Dave sends them some complementary copies of the magazine, as well as a few prints of the photographs that were picked to accompany the article on ‘figure skating’s new power couple’. When Yuuri gets home from a run one afternoon he finds the photo of the lift framed and sat on the little table by their front door. It’s a dramatic shot, the dynamic lines of their bodies accentuated by the rippling rainbow fabric behind them, but it’s the look they’re sharing over Yuuri’s shoulder that draws his eyes in and in.

* * *

After his months-long depressive slump of no contact last spring, Yuuri is determined to keep in better touch with Phichit now despite the four-hour time difference. They text regularly and Skype every few weeks, Phichit staying up late or Yuuri dragging himself out of bed early so they can properly catch up.

It’s the latter on a freezing cold Saturday morning in February, Yuuri huddled on the sofa with his laptop and all the spare blankets he can find, Phichit on the screen still in his pyjamas with a fat hamster dozing on his shoulder. Unlike his pets, Phichit is the worst kind of morning person, and it takes all of Yuuri’s concentration to keep track of his rapid conversation.

“So anyway I was talking to Ciao-Ciao- he says hi by the way!- about my ideas for next season. I’ve been thinking after how well using those _King and the Skater_ songs has been going for me that I’d like to use something inspired by traditional Thai music for my short programme, and do as much of the choreography myself as I can.”

“I bet that would be amazing. You’ve totally owned _Shall We Skate?_ this year, it would be great to see you bring Thai music to the whole world.”

“I know, right? My cousin introduced me to one of his friends who’s a khlui player and songwriter with this amazing band, they do this crazy kind of blend of luk thung- you know, Thai country music?- and classic rock, I’ve just sent you their Myspace page, so anyway I went out for iced coffee with Thaksin, the khlui player, and it turns out he’s already a fan of mine! And he was so into the idea of creating something together and he’s already working on some demos, and Ciao-Ciao keeps telling me-“

Yuuri blinks, and switches briefly away from Phichit’s face to the chat screen to click on the Myspace link. The page is entirely in Thai, which he can’t read even at reasonable human hours of the day, but he scrolls through the pictures, which mostly show the band performing or posing with their instruments. He raises an eyebrow at the very good-looking man playing what looks like a bamboo flute.

“So a khlui is kind of like a flute, right?”

“Yeah, but you play it vertically like an oboe, I think I showed you that video of my sister playing it in her school concert-“

Yuuri can’t help but smile. “I think I can see why you’re so keen to work with this Thaksin guy.”

Phichit blushes darker than Yuuri has ever seen him do before, even when he was hopelessly mooning over that basketball player back in Detroit. “Uh, I mean right now it’s a purely professional relationship, I don’t know him that well yet, but uh…” He trails off, sighs deeply, and then grins sheepishly. “Yeah, you got me Yuuri.”

There’s a creak in the floorboards as Victor emerges sleepily from the bedroom, his hair sticking up at the back, and mumbles “ _Dobroe utro_.”

“Morning,” Yuuri replies in English, unplugging his headphones. “I’m just talking to Phichit. Did I wake you?”

“No, ’s fine,” Victor says, slouching to the sofa to lean over Yuuri’s shoulder and wave at the screen. “Hi Phichit, how are you?”

“I’m really great, thanks Victor!”

“Phichit’s trying to get a boyfriend,” Yuuri says, purely to see that ridiculous blush again. It works.

“Oh, really?” Victor brushes his hair back out of his eyes in a way that really should be illegal for the things it does to Yuuri’s stomach. “You want my advice? Fly half way round the world and get naked at his family’s hotel. Works every time.” He kisses the top of Yuuri’s head, says, “I’m going to make some coffee,” and drifts away into the kitchen.

When Yuuri looks back at the screen Phichit’s embarrassment has transformed into the expression of a child who’s just been given a birthday present beyond their wildest imaginings. “Yuuri,” he says breathlessly, “I think there’s a story you’ve neglected to tell me.”

* * *

In a wholly selfless decision as Yuuri’s coach, Victor agrees to let him have a few days off to attend the European Championships. They fly into Prague and take a train cross-country to Ostrava, speeding through forests and wide, flat farmland that reminds Yuuri of living in America.

In the hotel lobby it’s Emil who pounces on him for a hug this time, chattering excitedly about his home turf advantage while the press mill around Victor.

“Promise you’ll cheer for me, won’t you?” he asks, clasping Yuuri by the shoulders and beaming like they’re old friends. “I mean obviously you’re here for Victor, but you’ll cheer for me too, right?”

“Of course,” Yuuri says, smiling in return. He wouldn’t mind having Emil for a friend. If nothing else, the man is a champion at hugs, and somewhere in the last few months it’s stopped feeling like such a huge personal intrusion when other people touch him unawares.

“Yuuri!” someone else calls from across the lobby, and before he can quite process it he’s being hugged _again_ , this time by Sara Crispino. Over her shoulder he can see Michele a few feet away trying desperately not to look indignant, and Yuuri musters his best ‘I am _engaged_ to a _man_ ’ face. “It’s so good to see you, how is Russia? Mila told me you’re learning the language, yeah?”

“Yeah, it’s been challenging.”

“And back in Barcelona I never said congrats on your engagement- such great news!” She hugs him again and then glances back to her brother to give her own variant of the ‘he is _engaged_ to a _man_ ’ look. “Micky and I are having dinner tomorrow night with the other Russian skaters, will you and Victor be there too?”

“Yuuri has to appease his adoring public,” Victor says, coming up behind them with a few photographers still in tow. His fingers brush against Yuuri’s back between his shoulder blades, a gentle point of contact. “Sadly I can’t keep him all to myself.” Yuuri looks up to meet his eyes and the fondness there is tinged with pride. Maybe he’s remembering how Yuuri had shrunk away from these exact same people in Moscow.

The last time Yuuri had been at a skating competition purely as a spectator had been 2013, when Skate America was held in Detroit and Celestino got everyone at the rink free tickets. The previous World Championships had left Yuuri just a few points shy of being seeded for that Grand Prix series, which had hurt pretty badly at the time, but it had at least left him free of any pressure watching the competition.

Here Yuuri knows he’s watching competitors who he’ll be facing soon at Worlds, but the enthusiasm of the crowds is infectious. Is this how people feel watching him skate, this fervour and emotion telegraphed from a lone figure on the ice to a whole arena? He hopes so. Mila comes to sit with him in the reserved seating during the first half of the mens’ singles event and alternates between cheering alongside him and feeding him salacious gossip about the other European skaters, most of which surely has to be made up. She’s his friend now too, he realises, when she starts asking him earnestly for his opinions on a French pairs couple and their tumultuous love life. Even this far from home, there are people all around him.

He goes down to the kiss and cry while Chris is on the ice, where Victor is going through a few final stretches and getting his last pre-skate lecture from Yakov. Victor reaches out for him as soon as he sees him and they clasp hands, leaning their foreheads together. Yuuri can feel the slight tremor in Victor’s body. He’s nervous too.

“You know who I’m skating for,” he murmurs, and Yuuri feels his breath catch in his throat.

“I won’t take my eyes off you,” he promises in return, and Victor’s lips press once, briefly against his forehead and then he’s away, jacket shed, out onto the ice like he’s stepping into another world. Yuuri watches him go, the spotlights catching the glimmer of gold on his finger.

* * *

**日本語**

At home, when they’re alone, they speak in Japanese. 

Victor doesn’t want to lose the fluency he gained from eight months living in Hasetsu, and on the days when Yuuri feels homesickness tugging at his heart there’s something particularly soothing about _ai shiteru yo_ murmured in his ear while seagulls cry outside their window.

Victor still speaks with an accent that’s completely delightful, a strange blend of throaty Russian and the country lilt of Saga. Sometimes Yuuri hates to correct him when his pronunciation slips, treasuring the sound of familiar words made entirely Victor.

“You just want to embarrass me!” Victor wails when Yuuri finally admits that he’s been saying _genmaicha_ wrong for months. He flops dramatically onto the sofa. “So you can be the amazing Yuuri Katsuki, Japan’s ace skater, and I’m just the crazy foreigner you foolishly agreed to marry.”

“Absolutely.” Yuuri leans over the back of the sofa, hands cradling a mug of the offending tea. “Maybe one of us will get assigned to the NHK Trophy next season and I’ll meet a really good-looking guy there who can say _all_ the names of my favourite foods.”

“I will bribe the ISU!” Victor declares, making a flourish with one hand before reaching up to muss Yuuri’s hair. “‘Dear Madame President, please don’t send me or Yuuri to Japan ever again or I will die of heartbreak, love and kisses, Victor Nikiforov’.”

“You wouldn’t write a letter like that in Japanese either,” Yuuri says, physically incapable of not leaning into Victor’s touch. “You’re basically obliged to start off by talking about the weather. And please don’t call the head of the ISU ‘dear’.”

“You’re worse than the British, living on tiny islands and only talking about weather.”

“You like the weather in Hasetsu.”

“I do.” Victor’s hand has slipped down and his thumb is stroking the side of Yuuri’s face now, delicate movements back and forth. “Promise you won’t run off with the first man who says _dorayaki_ the next time we visit?”

Yuuri turns his head and presses a kiss to the heel of Victor’s hand. “Only if he brings me one.”

* * *

They scour the whole of St Petersburg looking for places to buy decent quality Japanese ingredients. In the first week after his arrival they’d gone out for dinner with some of the other Russian skaters to what Georgi claimed was a ‘great sushi place’, and which turned out to surpass Yuuri’s expectations by being _significantly worse_ than either of the two ‘Japanese’ restaurants he’d tried in Detroit. He’s maintained ever since that he has a great interest in experiencing European cuisine.

“Yuuri, over here!” Victor’s hand emerges over the top of the closely-packed shelves in the tiny Asian supermarket they’ve recently found in the Kirovsky district. Yuuri squeezes past the elderly woman restocking the miso and rounds the corner towards him. Victor is cradling a sack of Nishiki rice in his arms like a baby. “This one is the good stuff, right?”

“Oh, _finally_.” Yuuri’s parents shipped them a fancy rice cooker as a housewarming present, and having eventually figured out how to use it with a Russian power socket without either destroying the appliance or shorting the power for the entire building, they’ve had nothing to cook in it.

“Now when I win the Worlds you can make me a huge _katsudon_ Yuuri,” Victor says, beaming and hugging the rice closer to his chest. “Don’t worry little rice, Victor will enjoy every grain of you.”

“Strong words for a man who fell on his butt in practice yesterday.”

“Yes, but I did it so gracefully they’d have to add points to my GOE for it.” Victor looks down into the basket that Yuuri’s carrying and nods approvingly. “We should be able to make a few tasty things from back home now that won’t mess up our diets.”

It’s not until Victor’s busy holding an animated conversation in Japanese with the checkout girl as he pays that Yuuri processes what he’d just said.

“You called Hasetsu ‘back home’, you know,” he says to Victor on the tram back to their apartment. Victor shifts his grip on the sack of rice to slide one arm around Yuuri’s shoulders.

“Of course I did,” he says. “Wherever there’s you, there’s home.”

* * *

“I had a very strange dream last night,” Victor says, slipping back into bed with coffee in hand. It’s a little after nine on Sunday morning, laziness as a small indulgence in their hectic routine.

“Were we stuck on a boat with Yakov again?”

“No, no, much weirder than that one.” Makkachin rolls over onto her back where she’s been snoozing in between them and lets Victor pet her impossibly fluffy belly. “For some reason I was working at a burger restaurant, and you came in and told me that since I can’t land a quadruple axel you were going to elope with JJ Leroy.”

Between three languages Yuuri still can’t summon up a word that conveys the right level of disgust, and settles for making gagging noises. “Nobody can land a quad axel though.”

“Well yes, in the dream I did tell you that you were being quite unreasonable.” Victor reaches across Makkachin to squeeze Yuuri’s hand, his ring a cool contrast against the heat of his skin. “Although to be fair in the burger restaurant I had to wear a really hideous orange uniform, and as we know JJ is a very snappy dresser. Also in the dream Mari sent me a seagull carrying a message to say that someone had accidentally unplugged the hot springs and all the water was gone.”

“I don’t think Mari would use a seagull for a message that important.”

“I don’t know, he looked pretty trustworthy.” Victor leans over then and gives Yuuri his second kiss of the morning, sharp with caffeine. “Actually it was the first dream I’ve had in Japanese since we’ve been back here in Russia.”

“Really?” Yuuri sits up against the headboard a little more, lifting his glasses so he can rub his eyes. “I’m sorry that Japanese-dream-me was so unforgiving about your jump roster.”

“I’m sure you can make it up to me,” Victor says and gives Yuuri _that_ look, the one that still makes him flush bright pink despite months of sharing a bed and doing all kinds of filthy things to each other. _That_ look will probably still be making him blush when he’s eighty. Victor seems pleased with his handiwork and smiles into his coffee.

Yuuri hasn’t had a dream in Russian yet. He knows it’ll happen eventually, and feel almost unnaturally natural when it does, like his first English dream where he’d been up and groggily brushing his teeth before realising that his dream-parents had been speaking with strong Michigan accents. It’s what seems to happen when a language gets past your brain and into the heart of you. He wants to run across that line with his arms wide open, embrace the language of Victor’s childhood the way Victor has his own.

“So what do you want to do today?” Victor asks, his hand returning to stroke Makkachin’s inviting tummy. She leans her head against Yuuri’s hip, eyes closed in happiness. “We could go out for lunch, maybe see a movie?”

“That sounds nice.” They’ve yet to have a movie date where either of them actually sees a lot of the movie at hand, but there’s something very fifteen years old inside of Yuuri that could never, ever pass up the chance to make out in the dark of a theatre with _Victor Nikiforov_.

But no, that wasn’t quite it. The _Victor Nikiforov_ he’d fantasised about wildly through the worst years of puberty isn’t the same as the man lying beside him in bed- their bed- drinking coffee in his pyjamas. That Victor was gilded, untouchable, barely human. This Victor snores, leaves his socks lying around, and steals food from Yuuri’s plate and then pretends he hasn’t. He knows which he prefers.

* * *

After his evening shower Yuuri wanders back into the living room wearing a clean t-shirt and Victor’s black Team Russia sweatpants from the 2010 Olympics. Every muscle in his body longs to be horizontal and preferably fast asleep, and he plans to indulge them, but even at the advanced age of twenty-four eight in the evening is a bit too early for bed.

Victor is sitting cross-legged on the rug with Makkachin’s head in his lap; she’s making small contented noises as he carefully brushes her fur. As he gets closer Yuuri realises that Victor is singing, low and quiet in his throat and a little off key, but the words are familiar ones.

Yuuri heard them often from his mother as a child, after a long and lonely school day or when a particularly nasty bruise made it hard for him to get to sleep. She would bring him a cup of watered-down barley tea, brush his hair away from his face, and tell him everything would look a little brighter tomorrow. And then she would hold his hand and sing until he joined in with her: 

“ _A canary sings_  
_A cradle song_  
_Sleep, sleep,_  
_Sleep, child!_ ”

The first time he and Victor had gone to the Ice Castle to practice after the Rostelecom Cup, Nishigori was already there with the triplets, running them through their basics, which despite his best efforts turned into the three girls trying to impress Yuuri and Victor with their prowess. It had been fun at first, clapping and cheering as they did little twirls, shouting out impossibly high scores, getting on the ice alongside them and letting the girls speed past, until Loop had decided to try skating backwards and lost her balance, skidding along the ice on her side for a few horrible seconds until she started to cry.

Yuuri remembers the paralysing panic that had gripped him in the century-long moment before Nishigori skated over smoothly and scooped her up in his arms. Victor bent down and took the other two girls’ hands and followed him off the rink. The Nishigori who’d loved to push Yuuri around as a kid would have been mortified to hear his older self singing gently to the bawling little girl in his arms:

“ _A squirrel rocks_  
_The cradle by its rope_  
_Sleep, sleep,_  
_Sleep, child!_ ”

Yuuri comes around the sofa and settles himself down on the floor next to Victor despite the way his quads protest; Makkachin doesn’t open her eyes but she thumps her tail approvingly against the rug. Victor’s low singing quiets to nothing.

“Don’t stop on my account,” Yuuri says, rubbing the backs of his fingers against Victor’s arm.

“I can’t carry a tune in a bucket,” Victor responds, the awkwardness of an English phrase rendered through his Russian brain into Japanese making them both smile. Makkachin whines, either at the cessation of the singing, or the brushing, or possibly both. Yuuri leans over to scratch her ears and starts in his own wobbly singing voice, Victor joining in again so softly that it makes his heart ache:

“ _Dreams in a cradle,_  
_With the yellow moon shining down_  
_Sleep, sleep,_  
_Sleep, child!_ ”

* * *

**_______**

Sometimes, in the spaces between their three languages, there are no words at all. 

The few times in Detroit that Yuuri had taken a break from studying or practicing to try (and fail) to lose his virginity, the thought of having sex with another actual, real life human being was terrifying. He wasn’t suave, skilled, or a smooth talker, and despite frantic googling he could never determine how a person was supposed to take off their shoes and socks in a sexy way. The more years dragged past, the more anxious his lack of experience made him. He’d never get it right, get it perfect, the first time round, so better it never happen at all and he be spared the embarrassment.

Then there was Victor, who despite having had boyfriends before was as nervous and fumbling and yet wildly eager as Yuuri, Victor who once, in his excitement, had thrown his shoes across his room (their room) at Yu-topia and broken a lamp. They’d blamed Makkachin. Yuuri’s still not entirely sure his mother believed that.

He’d never expected it would be so much _fun_. They make love slowly for hours at night, or they’re interrupted ten minutes in by Makkachin’s cold, wet nose against the sole of someone’s foot. They fool around in the shower in the mornings, or drive each other crazy all day at the rink until it’s practically a race to get home. Lazy Netflix sessions turn into totally ignoring the TV in favour of making out and pulling each others’ clothes off, until one of them- to be honest, usually Victor- tumbles off the narrow sofa and they both fall about laughing.

He’d never expected to feel so utterly _safe_ \- that he could be so completely intimate with someone and not feel afraid of oncoming loss, not feel consumed by all his failures and inadequacies. Perhaps it’s because Victor is laid open to him too, and Yuuri would fight, would die, would do anything to keep guard of the precious gift of Victor’s love.

In the long, hazy minutes before they fall asleep, Victor lays his head contentedly on Yuuri’s chest and Yuuri runs his fingers through Victor’s hair, letting the distant city noises and the soft sound of Victor’s breathing wash over him. There’s no vocabulary for this, for the stillness and the quiet and the embers of desire still hot in his chest. The heart has its own dialect.

* * *

It takes a great deal of pleading, bargaining, and Victor’s best puppy-dog face, but Yakov eventually lets them have a key so they can get into the rink whenever they want. It’s helpful for fitting in their training around each other’s, for allowing Yuuri time alone on the ice to work out his nerves, and for the times when there’s something that’s best worked on alone together.

The routine for the duet version of _Stammi Vicino_ had begun almost by accident, Victor joining Yuuri on the ice to work through it as they’d prepared it for his exhibition skate. Yuuri’s familiarity with the programme made it a good way to wind down a training session, and winding down gradually involved more and more goofing off as their months in Hasetsu wore on, circling around each other and coming together for dance holds and lifts, until Victor had mentioned, breathless and grinning in Yuuri’s arms, that he’d also commissioned a duet variant of the piece.

What they’re practicing now is more deliberate. The competitive, ISU-regulated forms of both ice dance and pair skating are geared for heterosexual couples, with lifts and other elements that rely on one partner being smaller, lighter and more flexible than either Yuuri or Victor. So they improvise. They’re planning to share more exhibition skates- Yuuri frankly resents the thought of ever having to do one alone again- but it’s not for competition, not for anything except enjoying the beauty of ice and melody together.

He’d thought over years of obsessive study he knew well enough how Victor moves his body, how he transposes every cadence of the music into dance, but it’s different in person, different when they’re on the ice together, different, he realises slowly, than Victor ever skated before they met. But then Yuuri’s skating is different now, too. When they step off the rink together he glances back at the interweaving swoops left by their blades, the calligraphy of a language he’s only just beginning to learn.

**Author's Note:**

> You can listen to the Japanese lullaby that Victor and Yuuri sing to Makkachin [here](http://www.mamalisa.com/mp3/yurikago2.mp3).
> 
>  **Translations:**  
>  _Roat, nos, ushy, e glaza_ \- 'Mouth, nose, ears and eyes', the Russian equivalent to 'Heads, shoulders, knees and toes'.  
>  _bitseps_ \- biceps  
>  _del’toidy_ \- deltoids  
>  _poyasnichnyy_ \- lumbar  
>  _der’mo_ \- shit (Russian)  
>  _chikusho_ \- shit (Japanese)  
>  _baka_ \- idiot  
>  _drocher_ \- wanker  
>  _mudila_ \- asshole  
>  _yob tvoyu mat_ \- fuck your mother  
>  _zhenikh_ \- fiancé  
>  _porosyonok_ \- piglet  
>  _ribka_ \- little fish  
>  _voronyonok_ \- little raven  
>  _kotletka_ \- cutlet  
>  _zolotse moyo_ \- my golden one  
>  _Dobroe utro_ \- Good morning  
>  _ai shiteru yo_ \- I love you (as used between lovers)


End file.
